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Thursday, August 29, 2013

how to save battery on blackberry 9670

Use Wifi when available - Turn Off Wifi when not in use

Wifi
seems to be the biggest influencer of battery life on newer devices
like the Bold 9900/9930. In all of our tests and real world outings,
having Wifi on and connected to a Wifi network was amazing for battery
life. Using the Wifi network for data instead of the carrier network
makes a HUGE difference in battery life (the radios don't have to work
as hard). The Bold 9900 can get a full "work day" of use and still sit
at around 80% battery life come quitting time all thanks to Wifi.

However
when you know you won't be using Wifi if you're out for the day or
somewhere where there is no Wifi connection, you can simply turn it off
to keep it from eating away at your battery. This keeps the device from
searching for networks and draining the battery.

Long story short - if you have a Wifi network available ... use it. If you don't ... turn it off.

To Disable Wifi

Click on the Network Settings area on your home screen
Uncheck Wi-Fi (to enable Wifi repeat the process but check the box)

Dim the Backlight

When you fire up a new
device, more often than not the backlight brightness is set at 70%. This
is all well and good to start as you can see the screen clearly and
everything looks great. Your natural tendency to want to see things as
bright as possible may have you cranking it up to 100%, however this can
more quickly drain your battery as the extra juice needed to keep the
screen fully lit up eats away at battery life. Turning the brightness
down (even just a bit) can help immensely to extend your battery.
Personally I always drop my screen brightness to 10% and have never had
an issue. It may seem a bit dark at first for some, but trust me, once
you adjust to it you'll never know the difference and your battery will
thank you.

Having the
backlight timeout set to a low value keeps your screen from staying on
unnecessarily when you're done doing whatever you're doing. In most
cases there is no need to have the screen stay on for 2 minutes or even 1
minute after you're done using the device. I think that sticking to 20
or even leavng it at the default 30 seconds works just fine, though if
you're really in need of more precious seconds of battery life you can
put it all the way down to a 10 second timeout. Having a short timeout
on your backlight keeps the screen from staying on too long and eating
up your battery.

Bluetooth
is a great feature of BlackBerry smartphones. It lets you connect with
devices such as headsets, computers, speakers and much more. However
when not in use, having Bluetooth active can slowly take away from your
overall battery life. When you're not using Bluetooth it's always a good
idea to just turn it off. Granted you won't be able to automatically
connect to devices without turning it on again, but it's only a few
clicks away so it's never too much of a hassle to fire it up again.

To Disable Bluetooth:

Click on the Network Settings area on your home screen
Uncheck Bluetooth (to enable Bluetooth repeat the steps but check the box)
As
for Bluetooth while talking on the phone, the Crack team debates this
one back and forth. Arguably you should get better BlackBerry life if
you're on a call using a Bluetooth headset or Bluetooth Speakerphone
(since you're now saving your BlackBerry from having to use it's
microphone and speakers). Over the years we've found this can vary a bit
depending, so it's something you'll want to test out with whatever
Bluetooth Accessories you use. But for sure when you're not using
Bluetooth, turn it off.

Change Network Settings In Poor Coverage

This
one not many people think of but it can also be a big help on the
battery. If you happen to find yourself in an area with poor network
coverage for your carrier, you can change up your settings or even turn
off data completely and save yourself some precious battery bars.
Sometimes when you find yourself in poor coverage it could be due to a
clogged network (as happens often to the Crack Team at tradeshows or for
those who are on AT&T in big cities like New York or San
Francisco). If this is the case, you can access your Network Settings
and change your device from 3G/H+ down to 2G. This drops your "3G data"
and gets you on the slower 2G network, but also clears things up as your
device won't constantly struggle to find a data connection. It may
sound a bit odd, but in times of need it definitely does the trick.
Depending on your situation, this could literally add a day, never mind
hours, to your battery life.

Change your Network Settings to 2G:

Click on the Network Settings area on your home screen
Choose Networks and Connections > Mobile Network
Choose the dropdown box next to Network Mode and select 2G
Alternatively,
you can totally disable data on your device by simply turning data
services off in this same menu. Keep in mind this will kill all data to
your device, so apps, emails, BBM and the like won't be received.

Use the Auto On/Off feature or Bedside Mode

This
is a simple yet not well known feature of BlackBerry Smartphones. Built
into the OS is the ability to automatically turn the device on and off
at given times. This is extremely useful for saving battery life as well
as turning the device off when you're sleeping, in daily meetings etc.
In BlackBerry 7 you can set the Auto On/Off for both weekdays and
weekends and if you learn to use it correctly it can help out
tremendously with your battery life. Keep in mind that this will totally
shut down the device so you won't receive emails, phone calls or SMS
messages as it's essentially the same as powering off the device. The
good news is that if you have an alarm set before your turn on time the
device will power on to sound the alarm.

To use Auto On/Off

Select Options > Device > Auto On/Off
Check Enabled for Weekday, Weekend or both
Choose the time you'd like the device to turn on and the time to turn off (ie. 10pm to 7am)
Also
lumped in with the Auto On/Off is Bedside Mode. This nifty feature is
accessed through Clock > Options and lets you automatically turn off
the device LED and Radio as well as dim the screen when Bedside Mode is
active. This feature lets the device remain on while not taking up any
extra battery life with the device radio or LED active. The clock will
be displayed and the screem dimmed, so if you don't want to worry about
missing phone calls or SMS messages, this is definitely a better way to
go. You can also power off the display fully in Bedside mode, further
saving battery life (just hit the screen lock button once in Bedside
mode). Read more on using Bedside Mode here.

Lock Your Device and/or use a BlackBerry Case w/ sleeper magnet

While
locking the device is something you should do anyway (better security
when you use a password) it can also help save battery life. When your
device is in your pocket or purse and it gets banged around, sometimes
the screen will activate when a key is pressed. To prevent this you can
either use the lock button on your device or set a device password with a
timeout. This is a good practice to keep the device safe while
preventing the screen from turning on when you don't want it to. You can
also use one of the many BlackBerry holsters that contains a sleeper
magnet - automatically putting your device to sleep when you put it in
the holster.

Exit Unused Apps

Simply closing unused
apps can go a long way in helping battery life. In particular apps that
constantly pull your GPS location or perfom other tasks really hinder
your battery life when not in use. To easily close these apps you can
use the built-in App Switcher to see what's running on your device, then
close anything you aren't using.

To close unused apps:

Press and hold the Menu button to open the app switcher
Highlight and select the app you want to close
When in the app, press the Menu button again then exit (shutdown, logout) the app

Change App Refresh Settings

Apps like
Twitter, Facebook and others that run in the background on your device
can eat up precious battery life in no time. These apps constantly
refresh at set intervals and slowly chip away at battery life you could
be saving. For any app that has a background refresh, you'll want to
turn the refresh rate up or even off completely. Twitter for example can
be set to refresh at anywhere from 5 minutes to 1 hour. Having the app
refresh every five minutes isn't the best idea if you're looking to
conserve battery power, so changing it to 1 hour or even turning it off
and manually refreshing as needed goes a long way. The same is the case
for Facebook, Social Feeds and other apps that refresh in the
background.

Charge Your Device (and buy a spare battery!)

Last
but not least is the "no brainer" of the bunch. Charge your device
whenever you have the chance. Be it at home or in your office with a
standard wall charger or BlackBerry charging pod, in your car with a car
charger or wherever you happen to be. Charging in your down time is
obviously the best way to keep your battery up and running all day long.

If
you happen to be on the go daily and fear your device won't make it
through the day, why not just carry a spare battery? This is the best
way to ensure you're up and running when you need to be and will leave
you worry free knowing you have an extra battery ready to roll when you
hit the red.